Golly! The Iranians Don't Think We're Hospitable

Not surprisingly the Iranian noise machine has cranked up into full volume regarding Columbia University President Lee Bollinger's introductory remarks and questions to Orator-in-Chief Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's appearance on campus yesterday. The International Herald Tribune's account http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/09/25/africa/tehran.php offers the explanation that ideas of hospitality were insulted by Bollinger.

The newspaper also speculates that the university president's "sardonic" tone was meant to deflect some of the criticism he has received for allowing the Orator-in-Chief to appear at Columbia. The IHT further dilates on the possibility that the Bollinger comments and questions might "backfire" by engendering sympathy for Ahmadinejad even from people who would not normally be inclined toward sympathy.

The Geek should be forgiven for doubting this. Of course, he acknowledges, the Iranians are noted for their hospitality. He is certain that any of the American diplomatic personnel who enjoyed over four hundred days of "hospitality" from the Iranian "students" would attest to the attentiveness and concern to say nothing of affability of their "hosts." That view would, the Geek is sure, be echoed by the dual citizenship holders who have recently been housed in Tehran's Evin prison.

(In the past the usual journalistic modifiers preceding Evin prison have been "infamous" or "notorious.")

In an open letter ten university chancellors in Iran have posed ten questions to Bollinger. The IHT only printed two of them. If the rest are similar, they wouldn't be a tough test for any semi-literate individual who is reasonably up to speed with recent history.

One of the questions is, "Why did the U.S. support the bloodthirsty dictator Saddam Hussein during the 1980-88 Iraqi-imposed war on Iran?"

That's a real tough one. The US "tilted" to Iraq for a couple of simple reasons. The more obvious was the Iranian hostage taking at the US embassy and the Revolutionary Government's complete unwillingness to bring it to a swift conclusion. That lack of action made the new Iranian government both unpredictable and untrustworthy in its international dealings.

The second reason is not quite so self-evident. In keeping with past US policy which was only briefly and partially abrogated by the Kissinger Doctrine during the Ford Administration, the US was not willing to allow any single country to emerge as the regional hegemon in the Persian Gulf area.

It was anticipated in Washington that the two countries would fight each other to a peace of exhaustion. That was seen as desirable. Iraq was the weaker of the two powers despite Saddam Hussein's delusions of adequacy. As a result we tilted toward Iraq.

The tilt was not complete. Nor was it inflexible. This reality is adequately documented in the strange dealings known popularly as the "Iran-Contra Scandal."

In the end, both Iraq and Iran were weakened by the massive bloodletting of the war. However, neither was as weakened as some of the planners and decision makers in the Reagan Administration had hoped. (Wished?)

The second question reprinted in the IHT from the Iranian university chiefs was, "Why has the U.S. military failed to find Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden even with all its advanced equipment?"

The short, but accurate, answer to that is: The advanced equipment, the high-tech gizmos themselves. If the US had relied more upon boots on the ground and less on eyes in the skies as our forces entered Tora Bora, there would have been a much greater chance of nabbing or killing Osama bin Laden and others of the al-Qaeda leadership cadre.

We, or, more properly, Rumsfield and crew, opted for gadgets over boots. It was the wrong call both strategically and tactically. We have been on the wrong side of the power curve ever since.

The situation has not been helped by geography, by topography. If the learned men of the Iranian universities would merely take a look at Google Earth, they would quickly see that the tribal areas on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border make the backside of the moon seem like mellow, easy terrain in comparison.

This does not mean that the US (and its allies) could not bring the cadre at the core of al-Qaeda to bay. It means the job requires more men than have been allotted to the task. It also means that the cooperation of the Pakistani military and government would be required. That has not yet been forthcoming in a meaningful enough manner.

(What will happen after the scheduled elections is hazy in the Geek's cracked crystal ball.)

Beyond that, gentlemen of the Iranian academy, the capture or killing of bin Laden can correctly be viewed as non-essential. It can even be seen as counterproductive.

A symbol, and that is what bin Laden is, cannot be killed. It can only be martyred, which is to say, made more potent.

The idea of capturing Osama bin Laden and bringing him to trial would be risible if the inevitable consequences were not so thoroughly unpleasant to contemplate. A martyr in chains is simply a call for redoubled jihad. Arguably, that is not in American interests, much as it might be desired by the mullahocracy.

If the other eight questions are similar in nature, the Geek, being a hospitable sort of chap, invites the Iranians to send the rest of the questions to him. He promises a quick, courteous response.

The Geek is all for hospitality provided it doesn't involve Evan prison or dining with a guy wearing a bomb in his belt.